Bahamian Minister Sets Out Four Digital Sovereignty Priorities for the Caribbean

Caribbean governments should strengthen their control over data, cloud infrastructure and critical digital systems, Jerome Fitzgerald, minister of economic affairs for The Bahamas, told the 41st CANTO Annual Conference and Trade Exhibition in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on 11 August 2026. According to a Bahamas Information Services press release, Jerome argued that connectivity and technology adoption do not by themselves provide digital sovereignty when governments lack control over critical assets and services. His address focused on ownership, resilience and the region’s dependence on digital infrastructure and services controlled outside the Caribbean.

Jerome proposed four priorities, beginning with a Caribbean Digital Sovereignty Compact covering areas including data centres, cybersecurity, data protection, government cloud contracts, portability and disaster recovery. He also called for a Federated Caribbean Cloud and Compute Network with infrastructure distributed across several islands, as well as stronger sovereignty requirements in major public technology contracts. Those contracts, he said, should require open standards, usable data exports, independent audits, Caribbean-controlled encryption, exit rights and knowledge transfer.

The fourth priority would treat Caribbean data as an economic, cultural and national security asset. Jerome later called for regional investment in Caribbean datasets, evaluation standards, models and research institutions, proposed a Caribbean artificial intelligence laboratory using computing infrastructure under regional control, and urged greater cooperation on cybersecurity capabilities and threat intelligence. For Drupal teams working with Caribbean public-sector organisations, the procurement principles could shape expectations around open standards, usable data exports, independent audits and provider exit, although the address did not mention Drupal specifically.